RAH-66 Comanche News??

[Seth USMC]

I was recently speaking with my CFI about the Comanche and he informed me that before the Army shut down the program they had built 13 ships total. That’s interesting because all the data that I can find on the subject suggests 4 at the most were made, with the general consensus being that only 2 were completed.

 

Anyhow I am wondering if anyone here knows what became of the project and "prototypes" after the army shut it down. In my internet travels I found these excellent Comanche resource pages:

 

Pictures: http://www.aeronautics.ru/archive/boeing/r...he/page_01.http

 

Some GREAT videos: http://oh1ninja.la.coocan.jp/misc/comanche...anche_movie.htm

 

(this one is my favorite -- http://oh1ninja.la.coocan.jp/misc/comanche...ck_hovturn.mpeg )

 

 

-Seth

[500pilot]

No idea how many were made but when I was working at Rucker after the program was cancelled they had one on display at the museum. Really an awesome looking helicopter. It was on display for about a month before they took it away. Several months later while flying I saw a Commanche flying the Bearcat Cooridor in front of a couple of OH-6's. I believe they were just doing some flight testing on some part of it.

[Seth USMC]

No idea how many were made but when I was working at Rucker after the program was cancelled they had one on display at the museum. Really an awesome looking helicopter. It was on display for about a month before they took it away. Several months later while flying I saw a Commanche flying the Bearcat Cooridor in front of a couple of OH-6's. I believe they were just doing some flight testing on some part of it.

 

 

I made a similar post over at http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.ph...002#post2751002 Looks like only 2 were made that were flyable.

[jehh]

I'm sure there were reasons for canceling it, but none than I've heard...

 

The sad thing is, they did 15 years of research on it, then threw it all away near the end.

 

One thing I did hear is that it simply did not carry enough weapons, and thus would have required the Apache to stick around. It is getting long in the tooth, and either needs another revision, or a replacement.

 

Now if they had decided to take the Comanche technology and combine it with a replacement for Apache, that would have made sense.

 

But this is the government, and that would have been against their basic operating procedures.

[Guest rookie101]

I'm sure there were reasons for canceling it, but none than I've heard...

 

It would seem the Army saw fit the money be spent elsewhere, a real shame to, beautiful lookin bird.

 

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/sys...raft/rah-66.htm

 

Here are some more stats on it and it looks like they had a model that could carry just as big a pay load as the 'pache.

 

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/rah-66.htm

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/rah-...ion-image17.jpg

[Shawn Adams]

I think it's still out there and in production (or a newer version of a Stealth Chopper). They just don't want people knowing about it so they "cancelled" it.

[dukun8ter]

Sorry to revive an old thread. But there is a Commanche grounded on the Long Beach Boeing airfield. Black in color.

[DizzyD]

You can see it on the ramp from the I405 freeway just north of the Cherry...I thought it was a movie prop for Airwolf or something

[chris pochari]

Sad, it was a beautiful helicopter.

[SBuzzkill]

Is that what you saw?

 

http://imgur.com/a/MMAS2

 

If so, that's not a Comanche.